36 basic communication skills
To encourage your child to take turns
Every time you take turns with your child it will be different. Here are
some general guidelines to make taking turns successful.
To begin:
• Get your child’s attention and let her
know you are ready to play.
Aysha?
If your child does not respond in
any way, try giving her a prompt,
like a touch on her arm, to remind
her it is her turn.
• Let your child take her turn first. You can then respond to what
interests her. But if you have to wait a long time, go ahead and begin
yourself.
Wait until you have your
Here it
comes!
child’s attention before you
take your next turn. Then
try to take about the same
amount of time for your turn
as your child took for hers.
• Your child will know that you noticed her action and liked it. She will
now try to use it again to get a response. When your child makes a
sound or a sign and gets a positive response, she will want to make
more sounds or signs.
When you respond to your child, try to:
• copy her sounds and actions (if she says “ga...ga,” then
you say “ga...ga”).
• continue things that she likes (rolling the ball to her again).
• add to what she does (like making her look for the
ball), to keep her attention and to help her
learn new ways of playing.
All done?
Allow your child to stop whenever
she wants. At first, taking turns
may last only a minute or two. But
soon your child will want to take
turns for a longer time.
As children grow, they will take turns more.
Helping Children Who Are Deaf (2004)